When a storage system manufacturer delivers a storage system to a user, the entire storage system, besides certification of constituent elements constituting the storage system, undergoes vendor certification by a vendor supplying software (e.g., OS (Operating System)) which operates, upon request of the user, on a server using the storage system, in some cases.
The above vendor certification is issued when the storage system undergoes a vendor certification test using a vendor certification test program provided by the vendor, and consequently, all the test items are normally completed. With this certification, the vendor assures the user that the storage system can be properly used by the server in which the software of the vendor is installed.
When part of the constituent elements of the storage system is changed after the storage system with the vendor certification given by the vendor is delivered to the user, the changed configuration of the storage system sometimes results in different one from that given with the vendor certification by the vendor. In such a case, a vendor certification test needs to be conducted for the storage system after the configuration change again.
Patent Citation 1 discloses a conventional technique for centrally managing the configuration changes of such a storage system thereby obtaining the latest configuration to reduce occurrences of a failure due to a configuration change.
However, when the storage system results in the one having a configuration to which vendor certification is not given, due to a configuration change of the storage system, the manufacturer is required to build the same storage system as that after the configuration change and to acquire a vendor certification. Such being the case, there are problems that it is difficult for the user to quickly obtain a vendor certification after a configuration change, and that the manufacturer is required to spend time and cost to reproduce the storage system of the user to newly obtain a vendor certification.    Patent Citation 1: Japanese Patent Application Laid-open Publication No. 2006-178720